Last Orders
by HeidiT
Summary: 'Gene wondered how many more times he would have to do this'... My interpretation of what could have happened after the end of series 3 episode 8. Obviously, spoilers for that episode.Rated T because Gene is Gene.


**A/N This one-shot basically wrote itself a few minutes after the last ever episode of Ashes to Ashes ended. I suspect that that episode has inspired several fanfics and I look forward to reading everyone else's interpretations.**

**Many, many thanks to genesgeni* from Luigis for reading this through for me and giving me the confidence to post it.**

**Sadly, I do not own Ashes to Ashes.**

As he approached the Railway Arms, Gene wondered how many more times he would have to do this. Some lost souls stayed with him for much longer than others. Ray, Chris, Sam and even Shaz had almost felt like fixtures in his world. But he had become too attached to them. He hadn't wanted to let them go. On the other hand, Piers had been with him for a matter of months. He was a bloody idiot who just kept bleating on about something called an 'iPhone' and, unlike so many of the others, didn't try to fit in or work as part of a team. It had not been difficult for Gene to leave him at the door of the Railway Arms. He didn't even bother to ask Piers to get him a drink.

After Piers, there had been a quick succession of other coppers who graced him with their presence and then buggered off almost as soon as they had arrived. Everything seemed to be constantly changing and Gene felt that he was becoming more and more detached from this place. He didn't feel as _needed_ as he had done before. Maybe _she_ had changed something in his world as well as in him. She had made him go back to that place..to remember....to talk about what had happened all those years ago. Then she was gone. Gene had known he would have to let her go and he was determined not to show that it was the hardest thing that he'd ever had to do.

The night that Gene had watched Alex enter the pub, was also the last time that he'd seen Jim Keats. Keats had been wrong. Gene hadn't ended up alone, but he hadn't formed the same kind of connection with any of the new souls who came to him, as he had with his old team, either.

So here he was again. Standing outside the Railway Arms with another police officer who was ready to pass through the doors and move on.

"Good evening, _mon brave." _Nelson was as welcoming as ever.

Gene was about to ask his latest recruit to leave him a pint and a whisky chaser on the bar before he walked away, back to Fenchurch East. Suddenly, Gene felt as if something important had changed. It was as if this world had shifted on its axis.

Nelson was holding the door open for him. "It's time to come in now, Mr Hunt. Last orders."

Gene didn't need telling twice.

"Guv! Guv! Over here." Chris was waving madly across the crowded bar.

"Calm down, Skelton, you dipstick!" Gene joined his team at a table that was heaving with full glasses. He shook hands with Ray, Chris and Sam and let Shaz and Annie hug him, but found that he couldn't tell them that it was good to see them again, that he had missed them. He hoped that they already knew. "Beer o'clock, ladies and gentlemen. We're wasting good drinking time 'ere!"

Gene took his seat next to Alex, she placed her hand in his and their eyes met for a very long time. As the white light enveloped them all, he knew that this was where he belonged now.

xxx

"BBC News on Saturday 20th July 2016...Using new methods of DNA analysis, the killer of a young police officer has finally been identified. On June 2nd 1953-Coronation Day, PC Gene Hunt was gunned down, while investigating a disturbance in an isolated farmhouse in Lancashire. His body was buried in a field, where it lay for more than fifty years, before being discovered by a group of travellers in 2008. He was murdered by James Keatley, a convicted career gangster who died in prison in 1983, serving a life sentence for another crime..."

Molly Drake switched off the television. She had taken a particular interest in this news item. Exactly eight years had passed since that fateful day. The day her mother was shot. The day that Molly had read more of Sam Tyler's file than she'd admitted to Alex. The name Gene Hunt had jumped off the page at her. Molly had been rather forcefully reminded of it when her Mum was brought into hospital and 'Gene' was the only word Alex uttered before she died. Over the years, she had come to the conclusion that the two things had to be connected somehow. Molly could scarcely believe that she had not seen her mother for eight years, but she hoped that wherever she was, Alex was happy and with Gene.

Molly stood by the window and looked up at the stars."I will always love you, Mum. Rest in peace, Gene Hunt."

**Please let me know what you think.**

**The last part of the fic is set in 2016 as a sort of reference to series 3 episode 1. When Alex is talking to the radio in the CID kitchen, the voice says something about Molly not having seen her Mum for 8 years.**


End file.
